My Hero Academia Episode 28 Review: Midoriya and Shigaraki

It’s only the second episode of My Hero Academia since the summer season started, but we’re already back to the action-packed scenes! Nothing proves a good story more coherent than when every separate development that has happened so far starts coming together into one chaotic turn of events!

Japanese Original Episode Title: 緑谷と死柄木

Plot

It’s still taking him much effort to get used to it, but Midoriya’s off to a great start in utilizing his quirk better! Gran Torino’s really good at this mentoring gig. He’s only given him some hints here and there, but most of all he is guiding the fledgling hero. The other freshmen were doing nicely in their own internships as well! However, Iida’s desire to avenge his brother seemed to be growing stronger the longer he remains away from Stain. When worse comes to worse, we can only imagine what’ll happen when he finally meets him! Even more so if Stain and Shigaraki manage to see eye to eye on their motives as villains!

Episode Highlights

One for All Full Cowl: Once one learns a new technique, it’s all about putting it to the test and refining it even more, right? And it was so amazing to see Midoriya succeed on his first trial, even though it was by a hair’s breadth! Looks like One for All, matched with his quick analysis skills, is pretty incredible! My brother and I even wondered if Deku actually had analysis for a quirk, but since none of his parents have an analysis quirk and he should’ve inherited it, it’s impossible. That means his ability to think quickly and aptly in certain situations is his own! Not only that, but he was even able to keep the Full Cowl longer while moving around, compared to when he was still trying it out. This boy’s adaptability is surprising! With the right amount of practice and getting the feel of it more, I believe he’ll catch up to the others in no time!

Nomu:A lot of us probably thought that Nomu, who everyone fought at USJ, was just another powerful, albeit weird-looking, villain that equaled All Might. But, ta–dah! Nomu wasn’t actually just one unique person. Since Shigaraki brought forth three more to spread havoc in Hosu, seems like there are others who were made to have multiple quirks!! It’d be quite worrying if all of them were all as strong as the Nomu at USJ, but from the looks of it, each of them really had their own quirks, like what Tsukauchi reported to All Might. One of them even had wings! However, a lot of things are still unclear about their origins; things that the Symbol of Peace linked to ‘him’. Who could it be? Was it someone related to Shigaraki since he was the one who controlled them?

Stain and Shigaraki: These two were quite the mess. I’m not really sure I agree with Kurogiri that their negotiations succeeded, since, while Stain did hold off on killing Shigaraki and wanted to see what he can do, it’s not like he actually wants to take orders from him either. Plus, if the League of Villain’s leader doesn’t want Stain in his party, then what’s the point? He even caused chaos just to show his own flashy style of ruining society! How will this play out, I wonder? As a side note, can anyone guess specificallythe Hero Killer’s quirk? A small hint was given during the two villain’s clash!

Iida’s vengeance: Talk about being at the right place at the worst possible time! I was hoping that Iida will never get to meet Stain during his time in Hosu, but he just had to see what was in that alley! He was so close to missing him had he kept looking forward while followingManual! There wasn’t even any noise coming from that alley! But I guess that’s a hero-in-training for you, more so one who’s really looking. I hope Iida doesn’t do anything rash. However, likely that already is from how he’s been acting and what he just did! Plus, for the class president who’s super bent on following the rules, once he realizes that he broke the law just for his revenge, he’ll be devastated! That is, if he survives fighting Stain.

Themes & Trivia

Conviction and Desire:For the Hero Killer, your conviction and how much you want it will determine whether you succeed or not. Even though his own are questionable, it is actually very true! If you stand on a weak belief, then you’ll just eventually give up on it, which is a waste. I say it’s also important to know if what you’ll stand for is correct or not, because you’ll definitely find opposition along the way, just like how Iida got lectured by his mentor about taking justice into his own hands! However, even this act of vengeance goes against his own morals.

Number Four: Any of you wondering or maybe didn’t catch what Iida meant by Stain following a superstition with attacking at least four heroes per location? In Japan, the number four is considered an unlucky number, just as the number thirteen is bad luck in the west! That’s because four in Japanese can be read as shi, which is how the word death (死) sounds like! So, most of the time, they just use the alternate reading of four, yon. Check out the site I have linked to see other unlucky numbers! Surprisingly there are lots only because of how they’re read!

Comments

I’ve always loved it when stories converge into one epic event like it’s the culmination of everything that’s happened in the past. That’s exactly how I felt as soon as that Nomu crash-landed with a hero on the train and Iida saw Stain, all because of Shigaraki and his loony show of ‘the correct way to ruin society’.

I also got carried away by the emotions in certain scenes, specifically when All Might slowly changed to his hero form and didn’t look the least bit pleased! Another one was when Manual was lecturing Iida; it was like the weight of what he was about to do was only dawning on him then, but he didn’t know what to do with his feelings! It was super intense!

Revenge is never the answer!

Though many heroes seem to have come to contain the situation in the preview, will they be able to succeed? Or will everything explode even more, just like how Kacchan’s hair exploded back to itsprevious style despite Best Jeanist’s efforts to tame it? (Sorry I couldn’t resist; I’ve been looking forward to that scene very much!)

Let me know of your thoughts on this episode below! Did it make you excited for what’s going to happen next? Plus, our Summer 2017 first and second episode reviews are piling up, so if you’re interested to add some more shows in your watch list, why don’t you give them a read?